Defending Android’s Hardware Buttons

My not so technically inclined mother just purchased an iPhone to "keep up with the times." Her biggest difficulty with it so far is figuring out how to move around within any application, specifically going back. It's hard for her to realize that sometimes she has to hit the button called "back" sometimes it's called "cancel" and sometimes it's called something else. She would love a back button, even if it were inconsistent.

While sometimes applications on Android override the back button functionality and thus cause confusion, I always find it very hard to adjust back to the iOS-way when using my iPhone. Especially if I can not easily go back to the previous application (one has to longpress the homebutton for that).

And if you want to see inconsistent or pretty lame use of a back button, just use the facebook app on iOS ;-) ... I don't know how often one has to click it to get back to it's main screen, but it seems to depend on how often you opened the app from a notification. That works far better on the Android version ...

Personally, I think the model the designers built on activities makes perfect sense an is very interesting on a technical level, but as much as you explain them to me, it still doesn't do what I want, need or expect sometimes.

Activities are hidden, they are not a user visible concept, so you cannot easily build a mental model without knowing and consciously thinking about them. From the UI, it just looks that the button has been overloaded with two functions: changing applications and changing views in the same application, because applications and views are the two very obvious UI concepts.

I also think Matias Duarte and the Android designers agree that the back button has some problems as Android 4 now has two back buttons: the good old one on the bottom and another one on the top left that behaves just like iOS's. I'm not sure two buttons with similar but slightly different behaviors are the perfect solution but we'll see if people like it.

I'm an Android user and I'll continue to be one in the forseeable future, but I have to agree that the back button "feels" inconsistent. There might be a logic behind how it works (OS-wide back button), but that doesn't mean it will make sense for the user. An app-level back-button makes a lot more sense to me. It should work just like it works in the browser.

That being said, I hope Google will try to get rid of all the physical buttons and "bottom bar buttons" in Android and replace them with gestures (learn from N9 Meego), so we can fully utilize 100% of the screen (and of course no more wasted front space with physical buttons, too). I think there are some phones coming out like the LG U1, which will have both a physical home button and virtual buttons with ICS. How does that make any sense? It wastes double the space.

Another feature request would be getting rid of the icons, too. I don't think icons belong in the touch world. You need bigger graphical elements, that are also richer than just an icon. I see them moving in this direction with some apps, but they need to move faster, preferably by Android 5.0.

To me it rarely feels inconsistent. I like that the back button remembers the context for whatever my current action is. It means I don't have to keep it in working memory. I just press back when I'm done.

I also disagree with Gruber's complaint:

Here’s one thing I don’t like about the Android Back button that I’ve never seen a counterargument for: it presumes that you, the user, remember the activity stack. If you turn your phone on and you’re looking at a web page in the browser, if you don’t remember what you were doing immediately before opening the web page you’re looking at, you have no idea where you’re going to go if you hit the Back button. Could be another app, could be another web page, could be the home screen. And if hitting the Back button takes you somewhere you didn’t want to go, there’s no Forward button to reverse it. It’s like leaving a breadcrumb trail in the dark — you have to remember where the breadcrumbs are because you can’t see them.

http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/11/02/defending-androi...

Actually, I think what's nice about it is that you don't have to remember the activity stack. You just hit back if you want to go to the previous activity, and if you don't want to go to the previous activity, you go to the home screen. Why would you hit back if you didn't want to go to the previous activity and also didn't remember what the previous activity was?

Here's a common analogous scenario for me. I unlock my phone to a web page. I finish reading the web page and then go, "How did I get here?" I hit back, which usually takes me to the previous web page, to google reader, or to twitter. I then go on with what I was doing, probably skimming feeds. It's a great, natural workflow that allows me to pick up exactly where I left off.

I wonder how Gruber manages to use web browsers' back buttons without getting confused. I mean, when you hit it, it can go to SOME RANDOM WEB PAGE!

As for the forward button, it's just a matter of hitting the exact same link or button that you did the first time. Forward is redundant.

And of course, if you're ever confused, you can just hit the home button and start over. This is your only option in iOS. If you get routed to twitter from another app, and then you want to go back? Hope you remember what you were doing before. In fact, you'd better make sure you remember if you want to get back. Because you're going to have to go back through the home screen to get there.

In my scenario above, ported to iOS, if I wake up my phone to a web page, I basically have no way to go back to the activity I was doing before the web page except to just remember. That, to me, is a much worse workflow. There just aren't any breadcrumbs at all.

I also don't think there's any way to get rid of the OS-wide buttons, because there are basically two axes of navigation. There's the OS wide one along which the back button acts, and there's also the in-app one that takes you between panes of an app. Swipes already move you between panes. How can they also move you back in the activity stack?

I do agree with you that icons are outdated. I hope Android steals more from Windows Phone 7. Those tile are gorgeous.